THE W HAM il OK NATIONS.

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amount to more than two millions six hundred thousand poundsa year, which is more than the Brazils are supposed to afford.

Our merchants were some years ago out of humour withthe crown of Portugal . Some privileges which had beengranted them, not by treaty, but by the free grace of that crown,at the solicitation, indeed, it is probable, and in return formuch greater favours, defence, and protection, from the crownof Great Britain , had been either infringed or revoked. Thepeople, therefore, usually most interested in celebrating thePortugal trade, were then rather disposed to represent it asless advantageous than it had commonly been imagined. Thefar greater part, almost the whole, they pretended, of this an-nual importation of gold, was not on account of Great Britain ,but of other European nations, the fruits and wines of Portu-gal annually imported into Great Britain nearly compensatingthe value of the British goods sent thither. $

Bet us suppose, however, that the whole was on account ofGreat Britain , and that it amounted to a still greater sum thanMr. Barrctti seems to imagine: this trade would not, uponthat account, be more advantageous than any other in which,for the same value sent out, we received an equal value ofconsumable goods in return.

It is but a very small part of this importation which, it canbe supposed, is employed as an annual addition either to theplate or to the coin of the kingdom. The rest must all besent abroad and exchanged for consumable goods of somekind or other. But if those consumable goods were pur-chased directly with the produce of English industry, itwould be more for the advantage of England, than first topurchase with that produce the gold of Portugal , and after-warti to purchase with that gold those consumable goods.A direct foreign trade of consumption is always more advan-tageous than a round-about one; and to bring the same value°t foreign goods to the home-market, requires a much smallercapital i n the one way than in the other. If a smaller shareo its industry, therefore, had been employed in producinggoods fit for th e Portugal market, and a greater in producingthose fit for the other markets, where those consumable goodstor which there is a demand in Great Britain are to be had,it would have been more for the advantage of England. Toptocure both the gold, which it wants for its own use, andconsumable goods, woxdd, in this way, employ a muchsum ei capital than at present. There would be a spare

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